Development of a Short Form of the Negative Pain Thoughts Questionnaire (NPTQ)
These authors point out that negative thoughts affect pain intensity and the magnitude of activity intolerance for a given nociception. They validated a short form of the Negative Pain Thoughts Questionnaire (NPTQ) that measures common unhelpful cognitive biases regarding pain. The four questions of the short form are listed in bold below.
As shown below, the short form of the NPTQ is associated with lower physical function, increased pain, and increased pain catastrophizing.
The authors suggest that the cognitive errors measured by the NPTQ (feeling overwhelmed, a loss of hope, a sense of doom, and an inability to achieve goals because of symptoms) may be managed by discussions about effective cognitive coping strategies (reorientation, balancing, and retraining the mind to tell a more positive story with use of approaches based on cognitive behavioral therapy) and by identifying personal and social problems contributing to the illness.
Comment: This research points to the importance of statements such as the four highlighted above. Hopefully, negative thinking can be identified and addressed before surgery is undertaken.
